Both Political Parties’ Establishments Don’t Get It

Donald Trump’s election to the presidency was as clear a clarion call as there could be that “business as usual” was no longer acceptable to the voters. The GOP Establishment seems to be utterly deaf to the message.

We’ve seen this reality play out from Trump’s first announcement of his candidacy right through to the present day.

During the election primaries, none of his opponents thought he had a slightest chance of actually winning the nomination, an incredulousness shared by the party machine. They mocked and belittled him, refusing to take him seriously. They were utterly stunned when he went on to actually win that primary.

But did that win alert the GOP that something profoundly different was going on this time around? Nope.

Many of Trump’s former opponents refused to endorse his candidacy, a few even threatening to endorse his opponent, Clinton. The GOP’s candidates for other offices continued to run on the promise to “repeal and replace Obamacare” in their own campaigns, repetition of a 7-year-old party campaign theme. But clearly, most of them didn’t take Trump’s campaign seriously, either.

How do we know this? Because when the most shocking and unexpected event took place, and Trump actually won the General Election, nobody was prepared to actually move forward and fulfill the promises they’d campaigned on for many years.

Having secured both chambers of Congress and the White House, was the GOP now prepared with a “shovel ready” plan to actually live up to and fulfill that years-old campaign promise of getting rid of Obamacare?

Not even close. They had absolutely nothing, because, as a party, they’d banked on the idea that Trump had absolutely no chance of actually winning the election.

In scientific parlance, this is what’s called “stupid”.

Compounding the problem, that stupidity continues, with no sign of abating. The “Never-Trumpers” are still in full roar, glorying in their “moral superiority”, reminiscent of Nero fiddling while Rome burned, utterly oblivious to the voices of that plebian mass in fly-over country that elected Trump. Elitist snobbery personified.

On the other side of the aisle, Hillary Clinton’s defeat was sending the same message to the Democrat Party, with the same result: deafness and denial.

When the campaign season opened the Establishment Democrats deemed Clinton the ordained candidate, and no other “mainstream” Democrat even threw their hat into the ring.

And then along came Bernie Sanders, the Democrat equivalent of Trump, an “outsider” who wasn’t even a member of the Democrat Party, having been elected throughout his career in the House and Senate as an “Independent” who only caucused with the Democrats.

To the consternation of the Establishment Democrats, Sanders’s candidacy put the coronation of Clinton in serious jeopardy, to the point that party officials conspired with Clinton campaign people to cheat Sanders out of any chance of winning that party’s nomination. Needless to say, the Sanders supporters were outraged by this when it became publicly known.

Once Clinton had secured the nomination, the DNC and her campaign apparatus evidently felt so confident of her chances of winning, and so scornful of Trump, that they decided to concentrate their campaign on the coastal urban centers and special-interest coalitions that in reality were already in the tank for her, utterly and completely ignoring everyone in “fly-over country”, as well as the masses of people who were ardent and now-outraged Sanders supporters, essentially wasting their time, energy, and resources.

Then the unthinkable happened. Trump actually won.

The result? A Democrat party in complete disarray and dissension, to the point of being in a shambles. A schism over what the meaning of such an unexpected and catastrophic loss means.

The Clintonistas are welded to the idea – really just an excuse – that it was “the Russians” and Comey at fault, unwilling to accept that Clinton was a terrible candidate who ran an incompetent campaign.

The Establishment, with a very few exceptions, can’t seem to decide whether their message to the electorate was too far to the left, not far enough to the left, too married to “corporate” interests, or what.

The very few who seem to get it have said that their party needs to take a serious look at the direction they’ve taken and the policies they’re promoting, and that it could be that the emphasis on social engineering – letting men use the same bathrooms as little girls, amnesty for illegal aliens, and the like – taking priority over bread-and-butter concerns about jobs and the economy may just be a very big mistake. The far-left culture-war policies that play so well in the coastal blue regions and some other major urban areas don’t go over at all well in areas outside of those enclaves.

Unfortunately for the Democrat party, if they want to be relevant on a national scale moving into the future, those voices really are being lost in the wilderness.

I think voters are clearly signaling to their respective parties that the old “Establishment” way of doing business isn’t going to cut it anymore. In the case of the GOP, that means they’ll no longer accept empty campaign promises that aren’t followed up with serious and concerted effort to actually implement the promised policies if elected. For Democrats, it means dropping the obsession with Social Justice and class warfare, and directing attention to matters that are of more concern to average everyday Americans.

Will anyone in either party “Establishment” pay any attention?

I don’t think Trump is the causative agent of any of this. The success of his primary campaign, and Clinton’s failure to beat him in the general election, are merely symptomatic of a greater dissatisfaction in the body politic, and the results of the last election – from primaries to general election – were the overt expression of that exasperation.

What’s truly interesting is how both parties are suffering at the same time from the same kind of malaise and disaffection. How this will play out at the polls is anyone’s guess.

Post navigation

14 comments on “Both Political Parties’ Establishments Don’t Get It”

The “Federal Government Establishment” (called by many the Deep State) is p*ssed at Trump. Trump is upsetting what has grown up over a period of 50 or 60 years. In this Deep State there are not only Democrats but also Republicans. They have been living off the US government’s teat (and the Globalists’ teat) for so long that they consider it their right. And this money from both of these sources has made these representatives and senators rich beyond their wildest dreams. And for this money all these representatives and senators have to do is vote and act the way they are told.

Otherwise how else do you explain a US Representative from Mississippi, Benny Thompson (D), who went to Congress broke, and now is one of the richest men in the State? The salary for a US Representative ain’t that much!

The Deep State and the Globalists have got to get rid of Trump at any cost. When the people at an Antifa protest started shouting, “Soros, where’s our cash,” the proof was there for everyone to see. The Deep State and the Globalists are going to do all in their power to remove Trump, including hiring domestic terrorists.

Like you Brian, I do not know what the endgame will look like. But I fear it will get bloody.

Grey, I think that really about sums it up. I also agree with your last sentence. It’s already getting bloody now.

For at least a couple of decades I’ve been saying and writing that “we’re engaged in a civil war every bit as fundamental and profound as the one that took place in the 1860s, except a lot less bloody… for now”.

Same thing with LBJ When “Landslide Lyndon” won his Congressional seat with a plurality of 82 votes (and half the dead folks in Duval County voted for him) He had to borrow money to go to DC. Thirty something years later he retired to the banks of the Perdenales….and deposited therein….

You would think that the political prostitutes would get the picture but it seems they still haven’t a clue. I hope President Trump goes on the campaign trail for the ’18 and ’20 primaries. Whomever goes up against Lindsey Graham should have a good word from the POTUS in the primaries mentioning his many attempts to sabotage the GOP, His Own Party, because he didn’t like The People’s Choice. Ditto McCain should by some miracle he still be alive as well as the girls from New England and Alaska for helping Kill the Obama Repeal Bill.
Nor do I believe the last election was a freak of nature. The Political Prostitutes are, mainly, in a state of denial and if My own temper is a pattern for us in fly-over country, every dang time they stick their finger in PRESIDENT Trump’s eye they are pissing the base off a little more.
I do believe that ’18 will bring on fresh blood in the Congress and it will not be RINO’s or Democrats. Perhaps, then, the political prostitutes will get the picture…on the way home and retirement.
This I Pray.

I don’t know what Weller is, but it sounds like something I’d probably like. Have one for me.

Y’know, it really is funny. I reluctantly endorsed Trump, being a Cruz guy myself, and just like you said, the more the left, the media, and the treasonous GOPers pile onto the guy, the more I like him. Just like you said, my temper’s reaching a boiling point with this BS.

Brian,
We have now been blogging with each other for 11 years and, you have once again keenly laid it out.
I am with you. The more they fu*k with Trump, the more I like him. He is really messing with their mojo. I just hope he can tough it out. For now, I am satisfied with what he has managed to accomplish. I am so tired of the establishments and their lame attempts at bagging him. They’ve got nothing and that pisses them off more than anything!!
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war…” and let’s just hope it’s a figurative battle that can be won. Trump has the moxie but, does he have the support of his staff? I think they’re killing him from the inside out and he needs to drain that swamp, too. Maybe go find some Trump Supporters and hire them!! 🙂

The mutual thinking, or lack thereof, of the D and R Establishments, simply proves that they are one and the same (not a news flash to any of us paying attention). Trump has exposed the UniParty for who they genuinely are and I thank him.

Note, the blood in the streets has been financed by the usual parties, It’s a show with a few innocents thrown in for effect. I’m amazed shot haven’t been fired yet.

The nitwits from either side had best not eff with middle America. The response won’t be pretty.

Brian, I echo your statement about reluctantly voting for Trump and you may remember that I bashed him at every opportunity prior to his winning the nomination.

Now, he is OUR president, and so far, he’s actually been better than I expected. Oh, he’s still chock full o’ warts, but he’s immensely better than Hillary would have been and as long as he continues on his current course, I can live with the warts.

That being said, I too get pissed when the left (and some RINOs as well) are intentionally doing everything they can to diminish Trump himself, the presidency, and everyone who voted for him. I take great offense at that.

He appears to be exactly what’s needed in that position right now, a lesser man would have crumbled from the never-ending attacks by the butt-hurt left. He’s got big brass ones and that’s what’s needed to withstand their onslaught against everything that most of the country stands for. They’re not doing themselves any good as I believe that many previously on-the-fence citizens are also getting fed up with the tactics employed against him.

As some others have said, one thing that he’s been slow to do is to rid his administration of Obama loyalists who are sabotaging him at every turn and leaking like a sieve. He needs to dump those who aren’t supporting him and his road to success will become much smoother and more assured.